The Rake
by Link and Luigi
Summary: Neji's got an ultimate defense, except when inanimate objects attack.


The Rake

One fine day, Neji was training in his backyard. He didn't have much to do on this particular day because Gai had been called away on a mission so he'd figure he'd just train a little in order to pass the time. Nothing strenuous, of course, since the day was almost at a close and therefore, it would soon be time for winding down.

He was just about to finish up when his evil uncle appeared in the doorway.

"Neji, are you almost finished training?" said his uncle.

"I'm finished." Neji said as he started walking towards the house.

"Good, because I would like to use—"

Hiashi didn't have an opportunity to finish his sentence because something extremely comical had just occurred.

As Neji strolled over to the doorway, he had stepped on something. A rake.

The rake handle flew up and smacked him right in the face, as it would in a Tom & Jerry cartoon.

After the two of them stood there in shock for a second or two, Neji finally stepped away from the rake, stumbled backwards and landed on his arse.

Hiashi's eyes widened.

Neji looked quite out of sorts.

Hiashi tried to keep himself from laughing at Neji's expense so he stepped back into the house, shut the door and quietly walked away. He wished he had never seen that.

Neji stood back up and brushed himself off. He glared at the troublesome rake for good measure and then quickly looked around to make sure no one had seen that.

After nodding his head with satisfaction, Neji decided that he would have to do something with the rake so it didn't have the opportunity to attack anyone else, even though Neji would like to be on the opposite end of what had just occurred, he wasn't going to take the chance that it would happen to him again.

He grabbed the rake and took it to the tool shed. You know, that tool shed that the Hyuugas have.

He leaned it up against the wall and was just about to exit the garage when he tripped over something and fell flat on his face, tumbling down the stairs until he reached the ground.

With his face plunged in dirt, Neji was once again in shock over what had happened and was unable to move for a while. When he finally gathered enough strength to push himself off the ground and looked up to see that his legs were wrapped up in a garden hose, and he had apparently tripped over it. He kicked it off himself and stood up.

Once again, he brushed himself off and straightened his clothes out. He looked around to see Hinata standing across the yard staring at him.

"…Are you okay?" Hinata asked.

Neji scoffed and ignored her. Hinata lowered her head and shuffled away.

He wiped his face off, since it was now covered in dirt, and was quite unhappy to feel a bump on his forehead from getting into that accident with the rake.

But we are not going to speak of that accident anymore. Nor will we mention the garden hose incident either.

Neji closed the door to the tool shed and made his way back to the house. When he was about half way to the door, he suddenly heard a strange sound. His first instinct told him that it was evil ninjas rustling in the bushes getting ready to attack him. And, since Neji's first instinct is usually correct, he got into his fighter's stance and began looking around.

Unfortunately, Neji found his first instinct to be completely wrong this time around. Little black thingys poked up out of various places in the ground and water began spraying out of them.

Neji foolishly stood there in his fighter's stance as he was being watered.

He let out a heavy sigh after an uncomfortable amount of time of being in shock and continued his way back to the house. He opened the door and peeked inside.

Hiashi was standing across the room, having seen this event while looking out the window.

"Neji, don't come in the house while you're wet." He commanded. "Go through the garage."

"…Fine…" Neji said, mentally noting another reason to hate his uncle.

He shut the door and went around to the garage entrance, trying his best not to get any wetter by the automatic sprinklers.

He struggled with the door for a bit and mumbled something unrepeatable under his breath, surely words that a thirteen-year-old shouldn't be saying. He looked around for another point of entrance and spotted an open window.

Even though he was way above such tactics, he remember how angry everyone was the LAST time he knocked the door down, so he jumped up and climbed through the window. He tried to support himself on a shelf that he could use to gracefully climb down, but instead the shelf collapsed under his weight and he ended up landing face first in a trash barrel, which fell over and rolled into a pile of fertilizer.

Neji was, once again, rendered completely immobile for a few moments. He pushed the trash barrel off his head and spit some of the fertilizer out of his mouth. Looking down at himself, he woed a little bit more once he remembered that he was soaking wet, so therefore all the fertilizer was clinging to him.

But that wasn't the worst part. When he looked up, he saw Hinata looking at him wide eyed with one hand on the doorknob.

"I…" she started. "My father told me to open the door for you…" she stuttered.

Neji closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

At least it couldn't get any worse, right?

He stood up and did his best to brush himself off and then took a step forward…

Only to have his foot land on a rake, so the handle came up and smacked him right in the face.


End file.
